Wouldn't it be nice if every child had the opportunity to create a space where they could escape the pain of divorce, bullying, illness, or low self-esteem? Kelee Katillac, an interior designer, creative therapist, and victim of some of these situations herself, has made that aspiration her goal.

Katillac spent the last five years case studying children ages seven to 15, and her new book Kids' Sacred Places: Rooms for Believing & Belonging (Ice Press, $29.95), reveals the outcome of ten of those journeys. With Katillac as their guide, each child crafted a room that is a sacred place where they can dream, believe, and feel safe. The book is available at Amazon.

"Kids experience a thrilling sense of personal power and self-esteem when they see that they can handmake their world the way they want it to be," says Katillac. "And their parents and guardians are happy at last to have a process that helps them help their children."

In the book Katillac shows how to take positive ideas from the heart, and make something that represents them with their hands. This affirmative decorating process -- Katillac calls it a Heart & Hands Project -- results in a creative and vibrant array of handmade chairs, pillows, window shades, mosaics, lamps, murals, and more. She developed this theory over the last 20 years of working with people from all walks of life, including Habitat for Humanity homeowners. Katillac was the National Director of the House of Belief Program, a program she created based on the healing process that is the result of her own life's experiences.

The author's personal journey began while living in a Kansas trailer park as a college student. "I was completely down and out, in a life-threatening depression, and believed my life had no value; that I had no talent or skills." One day she took home a broken chair, worked to repair it, and in the process, repaired herself. A few short years later, she was working in New York City with a top design firm. That she could work through her issues using art is not surprising to artists or art therapists. They've been prescribing a healthy dose of creative expression to treat people for generations, but today's high tech families have begun to overlook it.

A few success stories from Kids' Sacred Places: Rooms for Believing & Belonging include:

* Pablo, 10, a bullying victim and suffering from depression as a result, visualized life as an adventure game with challenges to learn from and overcome; he created an entire room as a 3-D life game: a game he can win.

* Henry, 7, coping with divorce and who longs for his father, made a Safe-in-Bedspread to provide a feeling of security at night.

* Kiara, 14, whose once-homeless family lives in a violent inner-city neighborhood, learned to make her own room into a safe haven; using her creativity, she handmade everything she needed with very little money.